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Mel King was born in October of 1928 to West Indian immigrants who had settled in the “New York Streets” section of the South End of Boston. Mel’s father worked on the sugar boats and was the secretary of his local union. Many union meetings were held at the King household. Mel’s mother was very involved with their local church and women’s groups.[1]

  In 1953, as part of the “Urban Renewal” of Boston, the “New York Streets” were razed to the ground. Several years later part of the area was finally used to house one of Boston’s daily newspapers, The Herald-Traveler, which had helped establish the “down and out” view of the neighborhood through a series of articles.[2] 

  Mel attended Claflin College in South Carolina and says:

For the first time I was attending schools run by Black people and was made aware of Black people doing things for themselves. I began another process of identifying…I stopped going to the theater where Black people had to sit upstairs and started patronizing the Black theater instead. I rode in the back of the bus, once, and it felt so crummy that from then on I hitchhiked. My father had told us that you didn’t take anything from anybody. If anybody bigger than you hit you, then you had the right to pick up a stick and protect yourself; but you never hit anybody smaller than yourself… After college, I came back to Boston and married. In 1952, I earned a Masters degree in Education at Boston Teachers, which later became Boston State College. I had trouble getting a job teaching. I asked if this Masters in Education meant I could teach Black people only. Between that and incidents of discrimination in trying to get housing, I had pretty much made up my mind about how I was going to address the issue of discrimination and racism…My strategy was to work with the youth in the community; and ultimately focus on institutions and institutional change. I knew there was nothing wrong with me.[3]

  In 1962 and 1963 Citizens for Boston Public Schools endorsed Mel, along with Arthur Gartland, William O’Connor, and Nathaniel Young for the Boston School Committee. Mel states that “There were a number of specific suggestions to improve our schools:

1. Decentralize the school system to have programs geared to the needs of the varied

    communities, greater parent involvement;

2. Improve communications between the school and community;

3. Round-the-clock community schools for public use;

4. Improved selection and utilization of instructional educational media equipment and

    materials.[4]

In 1965 the candidates endorsed by Citizens for Boston Public Schools, including Mel, John Gaquin, G. Parker, Arthur Gartland, and Velia DeCesare again lose to Louise Day Hicks.

These years were a period when increased awareness and information about the

            situation in Boston’s schools pushed parents to action. Parents took the safety of their

            children into their own hands through the formation of Exodus; the communities rallied

            behind the NAACP Education Committee’s challenge to the School Committee over de

            facto segregation, holding the two dramatic school Stay Out days. The cause was taken

up legislatively through the Racial Imbalance Law. Three times we attempted to get a liberal slate onto the School Committee.[5] 

In April of 1968 members of the Community Assembly for a United South End (CAUSE) nailed the door of the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s South End office shut to protest the destruction of occupied housing on a lot bordered by Columbus Ave, Dartmouth and Yarmouth Streets. Two days later CAUSE members and others concerned citizens blocked the entrances to the land, which had become a parking lot, in order to educate the suburban commuters who were parking there that homes had been torn down on that spot. One commuter became angry and knocked Mel over with his car. The police became involved and 23 demonstrators were arrested. Mel remembers that:

The arrest of CAUSE members provided a surge of involvement throughout the community. A spontaneous “Tent City” sprang up on the parking lot over night. The people of the neighborhood constructed their own city, complete with city hall, town houses,  recreation areas, housing, and cooking facilities. We shared meals and we hammered; students from MIT’s architecture department joined us to lend a hand in the construction of our “buildings.” It was our way of expressing our sense of community – our vision of what our community should be like. We chose this site because the decent housing that existed there was torn down. Today, after twelve years this site is still used as a parking lot.[6]

Finally completed in 1988, “Tent City” is now a “560,000 square foot complex of townhouses and a mid-rise elevator apartment building (89 units per acre) which integrates low, moderate, and market-rate residences with community facilities, day care center, and street-level shops on the commercial street.”[7]

In 1972 the Massachusetts Black Caucus was created with the election of 5 Black representatives; Doris Bunte, Bill Owens, Royal Bolling, Sr., Royal Bolling, Jr., and Mel King. The group announced that it intended:

 …to work toward Black empowerment across the State of Massachusetts…and the Caucus also understands that part of the reason for the Black Community’s long-standing disempowerment is the ethnocentricity which exists in the system. It does not plan to perpetuate that behavior but rather to end it by seeking to build bridges with all people who believe that the system ought to operate in a pluralistic fashion to relate to them.[8]

In the ten years that Mel King was State Representative from the Ninth Suffolk District he:

·      Fought to keep state enabling legislation for rent control when it expired in April 1976

·      Submitted a bill calling for statewide moratorium on condominium conversions causing displacement

·      Helped push through new anti-arson legislation outlawing over-insurance of buildings and providing for relocation benefits for displaced tenants

·      In 1978 was first Massachusetts legislator to propose a bill to require “linkage” fo affordable housing to large-scale, downtown commercial and office developments such as Copley Place. The bill, the Neighborhood Stabilization Act, proposed amending the state’s Environmental Impact Review process to require major developers to make payments into a Neighborhood Stabilization Fund to build affordable housing to offset displacement. 

·      Chaired the Governor’s Commission to Reorganize the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination during the first Dukakis administration, resulting in the creation of three full-time commissioner positions.

·      In the Fenway, helped stop the Massachusetts Historical Commission from demolishing buildings which became mixed-income housing instead.

·      Stopped owners of Camfield Gardens from unjustly forcing tenants to pay exorbitant electrical bills (caused by the developer’s decision to install electrical heat) in addition to rent which previously included all utilities[9]

·      Originated concept of “Boston Jobs for Boston Residents” which led in 1979 to an executive order upheld by the US Supreme Court

·      Fought for creation of Roxbury Community College and subsequent funding

·      Earned a nearly 100% legislative rating by CPPAX (Citizens for Participation in Political Action) and NOW (National Organization for Women) on women’s issues

·      Authored the first successful legislation in the nation requiring the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to remove all pension funds from investments in corporations doing business in South Africa[10]

In 1979 Kevin White was running for his fourth term in office as mayor of Boston. Running against him were Lewis Castro, David I. Finnegan, Mel King, Laurence Sherman, and Joseph F. Timilty. In The New Black Vote, James Jennings states that:

            The Mel King for Mayor Campaign of 1979 had four broad organizational goals…

1.     Intense mobilization of black voters

2.     An issue-oriented campaign

3.     A grassroots-dominated campaign leadership

4.     Black and white working-class coalitions [11]

Jennings also points out that,  “Although Mel finished third with 15% of the preliminary vote in 1979, many individuals inside and outside the campaign organization viewed the campaign as a success for a number of reasons. First, it represented a victory over opinion polls. …The ‘grassroots grapevine’ may be more important to assess the sentiment of black voters than ‘fancy’ polls conducted by experts. The preliminary election in 1979 was also a victory over the organization of City Hall’s political machine – in a limited sense of course. …A progressive campaign is far more efficient than a media or personality-oriented one in a black community like Boston.[12]

In the 1983 mayoral campaign, Mel and his supporters built upon the base they had generated in 1979 and continued to run a campaign focused on the issues important to the working-class neighborhoods of Boston. Mel’s continued concentration on jobs for Boston resident’s, affordable housing, safer city, education, women’s and gay rights, city services, elder’s rights, and fiscal responsibility ultimately earned him 29% of the preliminary vote in an eight-way race with Eloise Linger, Michael Gelber, Lawrence DiCara, David Finnegan, Raymond Flynn, Dennis Kearney, Frederick Langone, and Mel King on October 11, 1983.

One important factor in this victory was the “Rainbow Coalition” that was drawn together by the “Mel King for Mayor” team. During his speech after winning a runoff spot in the mayor’s race, Mel described the coalition as:

People like all of you! People who care. Over the years we have worked with people who are interested in bringing the city together, people who are interested in making this a city that works for all people. That's who make up the rainbow coalition. People who are tired of tension, tired of hostility and want to bring this city together. We have worked with people who want to celebrate our cultures and our diversity instead of fearing or attacking them. These are people who are practical, so practical that they look beyond race to the real issues that are affecting our families - issues like jobs, safety, affordable housing, quality health care, schools that work for everybody, a city that is open and accessible for all.[13]

The Rainbow Coalition remained strong through Mel King’s 1986 run for US House of Representatives, but then began to falter. In 2002 the Rainbow Coalition Party merged with the Green Party of Massachusetts, endorsing Dr. Jill Stein for governor.

In 1996 Mel King retired as head of the Community Fellows Program in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and has been running the South End Technology Center at Tent City ever since. Their website explains:

WHO WE ARE:
The South End Technology Center @ Tent City (The Tech Center) is a collaborative venture between the Tent City Corporation (TCC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  Our fundamental purpose is to enable people to become producers of knowledge and sharers of ideas and information. Our scope and methods are as diverse as the people we serve.  We provide free or low-cost access and training in most aspects of computer-related technology.  The staff, most of whom are volunteers, have extensive backgrounds in computer technology and their applications.[14]